Joy Luck Club-Plot Overview

The Joy Luck Club contains sixteen interwoven stories about conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. The book hinges on Jing-meis trip to China to meet her half-sisters, twins Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa. The half-sisters remained behind in China because Jing-meis mother, Suyuan, was forced to leave them on the roadside during her desperate flight from Japans invasion of Kweilin during World War II. Jing-mei was born to a different father years later, in America. Suyuan intended to return to China for her other daughters, but failed to find them before her death.

Jing-mei has taken her mothers place playing mahjong in a weekly gathering her mother had organized in China and revived in San Francisco: the Joy Luck Club. The clubs other members?Lindo, Ying-ying, and An-mei?are three of her mothers oldest friends and fellow immigrants. They tell Jing-mei that just before Suyuan died, she had finally succeeded in locating the address of her lost daughters. The three women repeatedly urge Jing-mei to travel to China and tell her sisters about their mothers life. But Jing-mei wonders whether she is capable of telling her mothers story, and the three older women fear that Jing-meis doubts may be